Cybersecurity Leadership for Non-Technical Executives

Overview

On the surface, a ransomware attack that effectively locks up your organization’s data is a technical one: Can the data be unlocked, and how fast? But embedded within cyber risk and cybersecurity are a host of management problems as well, including decisions about whether to pay the ransom, how your organization should operate if its data remains locked, how to talk to the media, and whether new policies are required to respond to similar issues in the future.

In today’s landscape of escalating cybercrime, mitigating cyber risk is not the Chief Information Security Officer’s responsibility alone—it is everyone’s job. Getting ahead of hackers and other security risks requires the active engagement of non-technical management, as well as an overall commitment to building a cybersecurity culture within your enterprise.

Cybersecurity Leadership for Non-Technical Executives provides leaders and managers with frameworks and best practices for managing cybersecurity-related risk separate from the specialized IT infrastructure typically associated with this topic. Course content includes lectures, highly interactive discussions, and case studies related to:

• Overall cybersecurity awareness
• The role of non-tech leaders in cybersecurity management
• Actionable ideas to increase cyber resilience
• How to measure the organization's cyber-safety level—and how it is changing over time
• How to speak the language of cybersecurity to enable informed conversations with your technology teams and colleagues, and ensure your organization is as cybersecure as possible

Key concepts from the various learning modules are cumulatively combined into a personalized action plan – a playbook – of what to do next and how to manage various stakeholders throughout your organization. This will also enable you to have more informed conversations with your CISO or other technology leaders regarding cyberthreat management. 

The cybersecurity course also draws from the U.S. Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Framework for policy and management planning—a flexible and cost-effective approach to protecting critical infrastructure.

You will receive a certificate of course completion at the conclusion of this course. You may also be interested in our Executive Certificates which are designed around a central themed track and consist of several courses.

For more information, please visit the MIT Executive Education course listing here.